How much electricity can you take on before you die?

Depending on what electrical conduit you decide to touch/grab/stick your tongue on, you could be in for quite a ride. If you’re in danger of getting an electric shock, you should at least know the dangers.

The severity of injury from electrical shock depends on the amount of electrical current and the length of time the current passes through the body. For example, 1/10 of an ampere (amp) of electricity going through the body for just 2 seconds is enough to cause death. The amount of internal current a person can withstand and still be able to control the muscles of the arm and hand can be less than 10 milliamperes (milliamps or mA). Currents above 10 mA can paralyze or “freeze” muscles. When this “freezing” happens, a person is no longer able to release a tool, wire, or other object. In fact, the electrified object may be held even more tightly, resulting in longer exposure to the shocking current. For this reason, hand-held tools that give a shock can be very dangerous. If you can’t let go of the tool, current continues through your body for a longer time, which can lead to respiratory paralysis (the muscles that control breathing cannot move). You stop breathing for a period of time. People have stopped breathing when shocked with currents from voltages as low as 49 volts. Usually, it takes about 30 mA of current to cause respiratory paralysis.

Currents greater than 75 mA may cause ventricular fibrillation (very rapid, ineffective heartbeat). This condition will cause death within a few minutes unless a special device called a defibrillator is used to save the victim. Heart paralysis occurs at 4 amps, which means the heart does not pump at all. Tissue is burned with currents greater than 5 amps. [2]

The table shows what usually happens for a range of currents (lasting one second) at typical household voltages. Longer exposure times increase the danger to the shock victim. For example, a current of 100 mA applied for 3 seconds is as dangerous as a current of 900 mA applied for a fraction of a second (0.03 seconds). The muscle structure of the person also makes a difference. People with less muscle tissue are typically affected at lower current levels. Even low voltages can be extremely dangerous because the degree of injury depends not only on the amount of current but also on the length of time the body is in contact with the circuit.

Thank you for this information. I’m doing some research for an invention I just created for a story. I’m not an engineer so I can’t get specific on how it actually works, but I needed to know how much of a shock the body can take to deter from going further.

Ahh you’re the perfect person to ask this question if you can reply please.

When I was around 8 I was in Syria and we was in a really old house that had no fusebox / earthing, it was my grandparents house and they had this really old tv that had about a million repairs and they still kept it, it was around 30 years old or something crazy. At one point there was a spoon on the TV, and I went to pick it up but the Atennae’s on the TV gave me a really powerful shock.

Being a kid it made me curious to what sensation that was, I didn’t realise it was electricity and decided to touch the antennae… After that everything happened really fast, next thing I know I was feeling extreme uncomfort, pain, hot, and struggled to move even an inch, I very faintly saw my hand, it was gripping the antennae. I somehow swung my other arm (maybe in an attempt to unfurl my hand thats gripped) only to have that arm grab onto the antennae too. Then I felt like I was suffocating and my sight got very dark. I actually had a thought that I was going to die.

It felt like I was being shocked for a really long time, after I had that thought I heard my auntie scream and pull the plug! My body jerked back and I literally leaped onto the sofa’s and started panic’ing, crying and shaking uncontrollably. After that whenever I saw a plug or something electrical I would have this breakdown because I would think it’s going to suck me into it and paralyse me until im dead. I often had nightmares about robots and I would try to run away from them but they somehow pulled me to them.

My question is how many amps do you think was shocking me? And would I have died or how long would it have taken to kill me? My auntie saw me getting shocked and I was making strange sounds, but she thought I was playing around until I fell towards the tv her heart dropped and she pulled the plug. They said it was around 15 seconds. Since the TV is old I think it was really energy inefficient so maybe the wattage is higher than normal and the voltage there is 110v.

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About the Author

Kyle Hill is a science writer and communicator who specializes in finding the secret science in your favorite fandom. His work has appeared in Wired, The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Popular Science, Discover Magazine, and more. He is a TV correspondent for Al Jazeera America's science and technology show TechKnow.